Attestations

An attestation is a firm's formal statement that it will take, or has taken, an action we require. We use attestations as a supervisory tool to ensure that regulated firms - and senior individuals within them – are clearly accountable for taking the actions we require, often without our ongoing regulatory involvement.

The most usual situations when we ask for attestations include:

• Notification – The most appropriate senior individual(s) within a firm attest to notify us if an emerging risk changes in its nature or magnitude. They are therefore responsible for ensuring the firm appropriately monitors the risk.
• Undertaking – The most appropriate senior individual(s) within a firm attest to complete actions within a specified timescale, however they are not required to confirm to us that they have been completed.
• Self-certification – The most appropriate senior individual(s) within a firm attest to undertake the completion of actions within a specified timescale. They are also required to confirm that they have been completed.
• Verification – The most appropriate senior individual(s) within a firm attest to undertake the completion of actions within a specified timescale. They are then required to provide verification that the risks identified have been mitigated and resolved.

Quarterly information

We publish information on how often we request attestations on a quarterly basis.

Table 1: Number of attestations by sector and conduct classification for Q4 2023/24 (January - March 2024) 

Table 2: Number of attestations by quarter and conduct classification for the most recent four quarters 

Notes to the tables:

1. The numbers are correct as of 31 March 2024. 
2. The quarters are split according to financial year (i.e. Q1 starts 1 April). 
3. GIPP attestations are not included in these results. 

Download historic attestations as a PDF